Syllabi
POLI 4000 – Constitutional Law of the Criminally Accused
POLI 4021 – Constitutional Law Civil Rights and Liberties
POLI 4023 – Judicial Politics
POLI 7920 – Public Law
Undergraduate Mentorship
I’ve had the pleasure to work closely with talented undergraduates at Louisiana State University and Michigan State University. Working with them to turn the data they collected into their own projects to answer important and interesting research questions they developed throughout their assistantship is so rewarding. They bring curiosity, determination, and a unique perspective.
The photos below (all shared with permission) show research projects I helped mentor during 2018-2019 academic year as part of the Provost Undergraduate Research Initiative and PLS Scholars program at Michigan State University. Students presented their findings at the annual University Undergraduate Research and Arts Forum (pictured below).
More recently, I had the pleasure of working with Bailey Chauvin, a junior at LSU, on her honor’s thesis. With the help of LSU’s Presidential Aide and ASPIRE programs she has been able to help me with research and develop her own research project. She had the opportunity to present her preliminary findings on the success of women attorneys from the Office of the Solicitor General at LSU’s Discover Day. She won third place in her category overall, which included students from Humanities, Social Sciences, Mass Communication, and business. Bailey defended her work graduated in Fall 2021 with honors from LSU Ogden Honors College. In Fall 2022, Bailey will start at Tulane Law School on a full scholarship.
During the Fall 2021 – Spring 2022 academic year I had the pleasure of chairing Colton (Cole) Tilley’s honors thesis on the Shadow Docket (left below). In an original survey experiment, Cole examined if participants feelings towards the U.S. Supreme Court or their decisions differ if they case came to the Court through the traditional certiorari process or via the shadow docket. Cole presented his work at LSU Discover Day and graduated with honors in Spring 2022.
During the same time I also had the pleasure of serving on Bailey Malveaux’s thesis committee (right below). In Bailey’s thesis, “Lies in the Headlines: How Media Coverage Painted the Police Violence against Philando Castile and George Floyd,” she conducted a content analysis of local and national newspaper coverage the murders of Philando Castile and George Floyd. Bailey also presented her thesis at LSU Discover Day and finished third overall. She graduated with honors in Spring 2022 and is headed to UC Berkley Law School in the fall on scholarship.
One of the more interesting opportunities to come out of my experience with an undergraduate research assistant is an internship at a D.C. appellate law firm. LSU Honors Student and Presidential Aide, Tori Jackson, helped research Supreme Court attorney race and gender. One day she went down a rabbit hole looking up Aaron Panner’s work with Kellogg Hansen Todd Figel & Frederick. She decided to call the firm and ask if they offer internships to undergraduates and after being told they do not typically offer positions to students from Louisiana she was on the phone with a partner, and a few months later, excelling at her internship!
